Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

by Charles Dickens

  Tom had certain ideas of his own upon the subject of glory; and consequently he was not quite so much excited by this picture as Mr Tigg could have desired.

  “But no matter!” said that gentleman. “The school-boy writing home to his parents and describing the milk-and-water, said “This is indeed weakness.” I repeat that assertion in reference to myself at the present moment; and I ask your pardon. Sir, you have seen my friend Slyme?”

  “No doubt,” said Mr Pinch.

  “Sir, you have been impressed by my friend Slyme?”

  “Not very pleasantly, I must say,” answered Tom, after a little hesitation.

  “I am grieved but not surprised,” cried Mr Tigg, detaining him with both hands, “to hear that you have come to that conclusion; for it is my own. But, Mr Pinch, though I am a rough and thoughtless man, I can honour Mind. I honour Mind in following my friend. To you of all men, Mr Pinch, I have a right to make appeal on Mind's behalf, when it has not the art to push its fortune in the world. And so, sir—not for myself, who have no claim upon you, but for my crushed, my sensitive and independent friend, who has—I ask the loan of three half-crowns. I ask you for the loan of three half-crowns, distinctly, and without a blush. I ask it, almost as a right. And when I add that they will be returned by post, this week, I feel that you will blame me for that sordid stipulation.”

  Mr Pinch took from his pocket an old-fashioned red-leather purse with a steel clasp, which had probably once belonged to his deceased grandmother. It held one half-sovereign and no more. All Tom's worldly wealth until next quarter-day.

  “Stay!” cried Mr Tigg, who had watched this proceeding keenly. “I was just about to say, that for the convenience of posting you had better make it gold. Thank you. A general direction, I suppose, to Mr Pinch at Mr Pecksniff's—will that find you?”

  “That'll find me,” said Tom. “You had better put Esquire to Mr Pecksniff's name, if you please. Direct to me, you know, at Seth Pecksniff's, Esquire.”

  “At Seth Pecksniff's, Esquire,” repeated Mr Tigg, taking an exact note of it with a stump of pencil. “We said this week, I believe?”

  “Yes; or Monday will do,” observed Tom.

  “No, no, I beg your pardon. Monday will NOT do,” said Mr Tigg. “If we stipulated for this week, Saturday is the latest day. Did we stipulate for this week?”

  “Since you are so particular about it,” said Tom, “I think we did.”

  Mr Tigg added this condition to his memorandum; read the entry over to himself with a severe frown; and that the transaction might be the more correct and business-like, appended his initials to the whole. That done, he assured Mr Pinch that everything was now perfectly regular; and, after squeezing his hand with great fervour, departed.

  Tom entertained enough suspicion that Martin might possibly turn this interview into a jest, to render him desirous to avoid the company of that young gentleman for the present. With this view he took a few turns up and down the skittle-ground, and did not reenter the house until Mr Tigg and his friend had quitted it, and the new pupil and Mark were watching their departure from one of the windows.

  “I was just a-saying, sir, that if one could live by it,” observed Mark, pointing after their late guests, “that would be the sort of service for me. Waiting on such individuals as them would be better than grave-digging, sir.”

  “And staying here would be better than either, Mark,” replied Tom. “So take my advice, and continue to swim easily in smooth water.”

  “It's too late to take it now, sir,” said Mark. “I have broke it to her, sir. I am off to-morrow morning.”

  “Off!” cried Mr Pinch, “where to?”

  “I shall go up to London, sir.”

  “What to be?” asked Mr Pinch.

  “Well! I don't know yet, sir. Nothing turned up that day I opened my mind to you, as was at all likely to suit me. All them trades I thought of was a deal too jolly; there was no credit at all to be got in any of “em. I must look for a private service, I suppose, sir. I might be brought out strong, perhaps, in a serious family, Mr Pinch.”

  “Perhaps you might come out rather too strong for a serious family's taste, Mark.”

  “That's possible, sir. If I could get into a wicked family, I might do myself justice; but the difficulty is to make sure of one's ground, because a young man can't very well advertise that he wants a place, and wages an't so much an object as a wicked sitivation; can he, sir?”

  “Why, no,” said Mr Pinch, “I don't think he can.”

  “An envious family,” pursued Mark, with a thoughtful face; “or a quarrelsome family, or a malicious family, or even a good out-andout mean family, would open a field of action as I might do something in. The man as would have suited me of all other men was that old gentleman as was took ill here, for he really was a trying customer. Howsever, I must wait and see what turns up, sir; and hope for the worst.”

  “You are determined to go then?” said Mr Pinch.

  “My box is gone already, sir, by the waggon, and I'm going to walk on to-morrow morning, and get a lift by the day coach when it overtakes me. So I wish you good-bye, Mr Pinch—and you too, sir— and all good luck and happiness!”

  They both returned his greeting laughingly, and walked home arm-inarm. Mr Pinch imparting to his new friend, as they went, such further particulars of Mark Tapley's whimsical restlessness as the reader is already acquainted with.

  In the meantime Mark, having a shrewd notion that his mistress was in very low spirits, and that he could not exactly answer for the consequences of any lengthened TETE-A-TETE in the bar, kept himself obstinately out of her way all the afternoon and evening. In this piece of generalship he was very much assisted by the great influx of company into the taproom; for the news of his intention having gone abroad, there was a perfect throng there all the evening, and much drinking of healths and clinking of mugs. At length the house was closed for the night; and there being now no help for it, Mark put the best face he could upon the matter, and walked doggedly to the bar-door.

  “If I look at her,” said Mark to himself, “I'm done. I feel that I'm a-going fast.”

  “You have come at last,” said Mrs Lupin.

  Aye, Mark said: There he was.

  “And you are determined to leave us, Mark?” cried Mrs Lupin.

  “Why, yes; I am,” said Mark; keeping his eyes hard upon the floor.

  “I thought,” pursued the landlady, with a most engaging hesitation, “that you had been—fond—of the Dragon?”

  “So I am,” said Mark.

  “Then,” pursued the hostess—and it really was not an unnatural inquiry—'why do you desert it?”

  But as he gave no manner of answer to this question; not even on its being repeated; Mrs Lupin put his money into his hand, and asked him—not unkindly, quite the contrary—what he would take?

  It is proverbial that there are certain things which flesh and blood cannot bear. Such a question as this, propounded in such a manner, at such a time, and by such a person, proved (at least, as far as, Mark's flesh and blood were concerned) to be one of them. He looked up in spite of himself directly; and having once looked up, there was no looking down again; for of all the tight, plump, buxom, bright-eyed, dimple-faced landladies that ever shone on earth, there stood before him then, bodily in that bar, the very pink and pineapple.

  “Why, I tell you what,” said Mark, throwing off all his constraint in an instant and seizing the hostess round the waist—at which she was not at all alarmed, for she knew what a good young man he was— “if I took what I liked most, I should take you. If I only thought what was best for me, I should take you. If I took what nineteen young fellows in twenty would be glad to take, and would take at any price, I should take you. Yes, I should,” cried Mr Tapley, shaking his head expressively enough, and looking (in a momentary state of forgetfulness) rather hard at the hostess's ripe lips. “And no man wouldn't wonder if I did!”

  Mrs Lupin said he amazed her. She was a
stonished how he could say such things. She had never thought it of him.

  “Why, I never thought if of myself till now!” said Mark, raising his eyebrows with a look of the merriest possible surprise. “I always expected we should part, and never have no explanation; I meant to do it when I come in here just now; but there's something about you, as makes a man sensible. Then let us have a word or two together; letting it be understood beforehand,” he added this in a grave tone, to prevent the possibility of any mistake, “that I'm not a-going to make no love, you know.”

  There was for just one second a shade, though not by any means a dark one, on the landlady's open brow. But it passed off instantly, in a laugh that came from her very heart.

  “Oh, very good!” she said; “if there is to be no love-making, you had better take your arm away.”

  “Lord, why should I!” cried Mark. “It's quite innocent.”

  “Of course it's innocent,” returned the hostess, “or I shouldn't allow it.”

  “Very well!” said Mark. “Then let it be.”

  There was so much reason in this that the landlady laughed again, suffered it to remain, and bade him say what he had to say, and be quick about it. But he was an impudent fellow, she added.

  “Ha ha! I almost think I am!” cried Mark, “though I never thought so before. Why, I can say anything to-night!”

  “Say what you're going to say if you please, and be quick,” returned the landlady, “for I want to get to bed.”

  “Why, then, my dear good soul,” said Mark, “and a kinder woman than you are never drawed breath—let me see the man as says she did!— what would be the likely consequence of us two being—”

  “Oh nonsense!” cried Mrs Lupin. “Don't talk about that any more.”

  “No, no, but it an't nonsense,” said Mark; “and I wish you'd attend. What would be the likely consequence of us two being married? If I can't be content and comfortable in this here lively Dragon now, is it to be looked for as I should be then? By no means. Very good. Then you, even with your good humour, would be always on the fret and worrit, always uncomfortable in your own mind, always a-thinking as you was getting too old for my taste, always a-picturing me to yourself as being chained up to the Dragon door, and wanting to break away. I don't know that it would be so,” said Mark, “but I don't know that it mightn't be. I am a roving sort of chap, I know. I'm fond of change. I'm always a-thinking that with my good health and spirits it would be more creditable in me to be jolly where there's things a-going on to make one dismal. It may be a mistake of mine you see, but nothing short of trying how it acts will set it right. Then an't it best that I should go; particular when your free way has helped me out to say all this, and we can part as good friends as we have ever been since first I entered this here noble Dragon, which,” said Mr Tapley in conclusion, “has my good word and my good wish to the day of my death!”

  The hostess sat quite silent for a little time, but she very soon put both her hands in Mark's and shook them heartily.

  “For you are a good man,” she said; looking into his face with a smile, which was rather serious for her. “And I do believe have been a better friend to me to-night than ever I have had in all my life.”

  “Oh! as to that, you know,” said Mark, “that's nonsense. But love my heart alive!” he added, looking at her in a sort of rapture, “if you ARE that way disposed, what a lot of suitable husbands there is as you may drive distracted!”

  She laughed again at this compliment; and, once more shaking him by both hands, and bidding him, if he should ever want a friend, to remember her, turned gayly from the little bar and up the Dragon staircase.

  “Humming a tune as she goes,” said Mark, listening, “in case I should think she's at all put out, and should be made down-hearted. Come, here's some credit in being jolly, at last!”

  With that piece of comfort, very ruefully uttered, he went, in anything but a jolly manner, to bed.

  He rose early next morning, and was a-foot soon after sunrise. But it was of no use; the whole place was up to see Mark Tapley off; the boys, the dogs, the children, the old men, the busy people and the idlers; there they were, all calling out “Good-b'ye, Mark,” after their own manner, and all sorry he was going. Somehow he had a kind of sense that his old mistress was peeping from her chamber-window, but he couldn't make up his mind to look back.

  “Good-b'ye one, good-b'ye all!” cried Mark, waving his hat on the top of his walking-stick, as he strode at a quick pace up the little street. “Hearty chaps them wheelwrights—hurrah! Here's the butcher's dog a-coming out of the garden—down, old fellow! And Mr Pinch a-going to his organ—good-b'ye, sir! And the terrier-bitch from over the way—hie, then, lass! And children enough to hand down human natur to the latest posterity—good-b'ye, boys and girls! There's some credit in it now. I'm a-coming out strong at last. These are the circumstances that would try a ordinary mind; but I'm uncommon jolly. Not quite as jolly as I could wish to be, but very near. Good-b'ye! good-b'ye!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ACCOMPANIES MR PECKSNIFF AND HIS CHARMING DAUGHTERS TO THE CITY OF LONDON; AND RELATES WHAT FELL OUT UPON THEIR WAY THITHER

  When Mr Pecksniff and the two young ladies got into the heavy coach at the end of the lane, they found it empty, which was a great comfort; particularly as the outside was quite full and the passengers looked very frosty. For as Mr Pecksniff justly observed —when he and his daughters had burrowed their feet deep in the straw, wrapped themselves to the chin, and pulled up both windows— it is always satisfactory to feel, in keen weather, that many other people are not as warm as you are. And this, he said, was quite natural, and a very beautiful arrangement; not confined to coaches, but extending itself into many social ramifications. “For” (he observed), “if every one were warm and well-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger. And if we were no better off than anybody else, what would become of our sense of gratitude; which,” said Mr Pecksniff with tears in his eyes, as he shook his fist at a beggar who wanted to get up behind, “is one of the holiest feelings of our common nature.”

  His children heard with becoming reverence these moral precepts from the lips of their father, and signified their acquiescence in the same, by smiles. That he might the better feed and cherish that sacred flame of gratitude in his breast, Mr Pecksniff remarked that he would trouble his eldest daughter, even in this early stage of their journey, for the brandy-bottle. And from the narrow neck of that stone vessel he imbibed a copious refreshment.

  “What are we?” said Mr Pecksniff, “but coaches? Some of us are slow coaches'—

  “Goodness, Pa!” cried Charity.

  “Some of us, I say,” resumed her parent with increased emphasis, “are slow coaches; some of us are fast coaches. Our passions are the horses; and rampant animals too—!”

  “Really, Pa,” cried both the daughters at once. “How very unpleasant.”

  “And rampant animals too” repeated Mr Pecksniff with so much determination, that he may be said to have exhibited, at the moment a sort of moral rampancy himself;'—and Virtue is the drag. We start from The Mother's Arms, and we run to The Dust Shovel.”

  When he had said this, Mr Pecksniff, being exhausted, took some further refreshment. When he had done that, he corked the bottle tight, with the air of a man who had effectually corked the subject also; and went to sleep for three stages.

  The tendency of mankind when it falls asleep in coaches, is to wake up cross; to find its legs in its way; and its corns an aggravation. Mr Pecksniff not being exempt from the common lot of humanity found himself, at the end of his nap, so decidedly the victim of these infirmities, that he had an irresistible inclination to visit them upon his daughters; which he had already begun to do in the shape of divers random kicks, and other unexpected motions of his shoes, when the coach stopped, and after a short delay the door was opened.

  “Now mind,” said a thin sharp vo
ice in the dark. “I and my son go inside, because the roof is full, but you agree only to charge us outside prices. It's quite understood that we won't pay more. Is it?”

  “All right, sir,” replied the guard.

  “Is there anybody inside now?” inquired the voice.

  “Three passengers,” returned the guard.

  “Then I ask the three passengers to witness this bargain, if they will be so good,” said the voice. “My boy, I think we may safely get in.”

  In pursuance of which opinion, two people took their seats in the vehicle, which was solemnly licensed by Act of Parliament to carry any six persons who could be got in at the door.

  “That was lucky!” whispered the old man, when they moved on again. “And a great stroke of policy in you to observe it. He, he, he! We couldn't have gone outside. I should have died of the rheumatism!”

  Whether it occurred to the dutiful son that he had in some degree over-reached himself by contributing to the prolongation of his father's days; or whether the cold had effected his temper; is doubtful. But he gave his father such a nudge in reply, that that good old gentleman was taken with a cough which lasted for full five minutes without intermission, and goaded Mr Pecksniff to that pitch of irritation, that he said at last—and very suddenly:

  “There is no room! There is really no room in this coach for any gentleman with a cold in his head!”

  “Mine,” said the old man, after a moment's pause, “is upon my chest, Pecksniff.”

  The voice and manner, together, now that he spoke out; the composure of the speaker; the presence of his son; and his knowledge of Mr Pecksniff; afforded a clue to his identity which it was impossible to mistake.

  “Hem! I thought,” said Mr Pecksniff, returning to his usual mildness, “that I addressed a stranger. I find that I address a relative, Mr Anthony Chuzzlewit and his son Mr Jonas—for they, my dear children, are our travelling companions—will excuse me for an apparently harsh remark. It is not MY desire to wound the feelings of any person with whom I am connected in family bonds. I may be a Hypocrite,” said Mr Pecksniff, cuttingly; “but I am not a Brute.”